Thanks to the New York Times (free reg. req.) for its article exploring possible racial stereotyping inherent in many videogames. The article alleges: "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas... underscores what some critics consider a disturbing trend: popular video games that play on racial stereotypes, including images of black youths committing and reveling in violent street crime." Partially, though not wholly related to a recently discussed article on 'street' videogames, it's also argued: "The issue, critics say, is not that the games' representation of racial and ethnic minorities is as blatantly threatening as the sort found at hate sites on the Web, where players are asked to gun down virtual black or Jewish characters. Rather, the racial and ethnic depictions and story lines are more subtle, and therefore, some say, more insidious."

Gorf writes "Nintendo's now famous Reggie Fils-Aime had a presentation at the Ziff Davis Games Summit where he discussed the upcoming Nintendo DS. The full transcript is available on Ziff Davis' games web site 1UP.com." Reggie's immortal first lines? "Hello, my name is Reggie...and I'm addicted to my Blackberry. In fact, to me it's a 'Crackberry.'" 1UP is also running a related story indicating "Nintendo's DS handheld will likely see release in North America before Thanksgiving weekend, according to several sources at the [same] summit", though it's argued: "Less confidence is evident when it comes to Nintendo's ability to deliver a fleshed-out software lineup at that point, however."

Chris Burkhardt writes "iDevGames officially announced the start of the uDevGames Game Development Contest yesterday. The contest challenges participants to create a Mac OS X game in three months time, which will then be subjected to public vote, peer vote, and a panel of judges, with the best in a variety of categories receiving prizes. iDevGames has issued a press release." Previous winners of the competition include the rather smart Argonaut 2149.

vansau writes "Ben Kingsley, the Oscar-winning actor for his role in Gandhi, has signed on to star in the upcoming BloodRayne movie alongside Kristanna Loken (the T-X in Terminator 3.) Kingsley will play Rayne's (Loken) vampiric father, Kagan." We've previously covered director Uwe Boll's inspiring words on this movie, and Metafilter has plenty of comments on Boll's newly released Alone In The Dark trailer.

japala writes "Fast-paced videogames require a steady hand and great reflexes, it's generally agreed. But some game controllers and pads just don't seem to fit in your hand, and sometimes they slip and slide, making you miss the action. So Metku.net has tried coating videogame controllers with chemical rubber - it seems to improve grip, and possibly even your score."

thrashor writes "A major upcoming exhibit of the Asia Society in New York City explores the Asian origins of games - including many of the favorite board games in the English speaking world. The exhibition looks at how games have been as important as trade and religion in transmitting cultural ideas. Backgammon, dice games, chess, and of course (my favorite), Go/Weiqi/Baduk are explored, among many others." The exhibition preview mentions: "Illustrating the importance of games in early societies, mastery of weiqi was considered by Chinese people to be one of four essential cultural accomplishments along with music, calligraphy and painting."

Thanks to the San Jose Biz Journal for its article discussing the boom in funding for mobile phone game creators and publishers. The story notes that venture capitalists "made six gaming investments totaling $50 million in all of 2003. In the second quarter of 2004 alone, there were five [largely mobile gaming] deals totaling $86 million." Apparently: "Java-enabled handset sales tripled in 2003 to 95.5 million units and sales of Qualcomm's Brew platform reached 11.6 million in 2003, up from 3.5 million the prior year." Although "mobile gaming is young enough that it's cheap to produce a lot of games and see which ones stick", do you think these large investments are going to pay off?

Thanks to GameSpot for its news story reporting that Sony is intending to use the PlayStation 2's CPU chip in a flat-screen TV that will be released in Japan this fall. According to the story: "Sony plans to take advantage of the PS2 chip's CG capabilities to create a high-quality graphical user interface (GUI) for the flat-screen TV [apparently similar to the PSX's DVR menu in style], which will allow smooth and easy control in navigating the TV's menu." There's no indication of any game-like functions for the TV, but: "The release of the new flat-screen TV can also be considered as the prelude to Sony's next-generation electronic products, some of which are expected to operate using the PS3's Cell chip when they are released in 2006."

Rainier Wolfecastle writes "A couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit Peter Molyneux and Simon and Dene Carter in Guildford, UK, for some hands-on time with Fable, their highly anticipated, finally ready for release Xbox action-RPG." Kikizo admits "Fable has been a long time coming, and for better or worse the media has elevated expectations considerably", but likes what it sees, calling the September 14th-due title "huge, gorgeous and a joy to play." Eurogamer also weighs in with impressions, expressing some reservations despite "feeling relatively upbeat" about the title, explaining: "As much as we enjoyed our time with it, it's the sort of game - typical of Peter Molyneux really - that we can't really assess piecemeal."

An anonymous reader writes "Game Informer has broken the news that there will be four new NES Classic titles released for Game Boy Advancein the States this October 25th: 'The four titles will include Dr. Mario, Metroid, Castlevania, and Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link. Each title will retail for a suggested price of $19.99.' [We've previously covered the Japanese re-release of some of these.] Also, Game Informer has put up 15 movies from the Metroid Prime 2: Echoes demo disc that ships with the new Metroid Prime GameCube bundle. The movies cover every single second of the disc, from beginning to end."

orion024 writes "From the official Half-Life 2 website - the Half-Life: Counter-Strike Source beta '...will be playable [starting tomorrow, Wednesday] at all cyber cafes that subscribe to the Valve Cyber Cafe Program. Later this month, the beta will be extended to owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero; and ATI Fulfillment Coupon holders.' Hopefully, this beta, using the Source engine Half-Life 2 is built upon, will ease those HL2 jitters many fellow gamers are experiencing." We previously reported on some friction between cybercafe owners and Valve - as for CS:Source, IGN PC also has an updated preview on the title, which sports "the same specs that Doug Lombardi mentioned for Half-Life 2... minimum system requirements appear to be a 1.2 gigahertz processor with 256 megabytes of RAM and a DirectX 7 video card."

Thanks to Nintendo's press site for a release listing the Nintendo DS dual-screen handheld titles currently in development for a Western release. Although sharing many games with a recently announced Japanese listing, it's explained: "Many of the industry's biggest software companies confirm that they will deliver names like Madden NFL, Viewtiful Joe, Rayman and SpongeBob SquarePants to the Nintendo DS", and other new/surprising DS titles include GoldenEye from EA, an Atari Classics pack from Atari, and a Western release of the previously mentioned Caduceus surgery game from Atlus.

Thanks to IGN PS2 for its short article noting Natsume has announced the PlayStation 2 action title Finny the Fish & the Seven Waters for North American release "in the first quarter of 2005." NCSX describes the Sega WOW developed Japanese version as being "a surprisingly fresh and engaging gaming experience", as "the protagonist UO (fish) is sent on a mission by an old turtle creature... prey may be gobbled up by wagging the right thumbstick... fishermen also plunk their appetizing baited lines into the water to snatch hungry fish." There are also a number of screenshots of this quirky-looking title over at The Magic Box.

Thanks to 1UP for its interview with Japanese game developer Naoto Ohshima, who "gained notoriety at Sega's Sonic Team for creating characters and playing integral roles in the development of games like Phantasy Star, Nights, and Sonic Adventure", and now "heads up developer Artoon." Ohshima discusses topics such as being a Japanese developer making Xbox titles (the Blinx series) for Microsoft ("I basically like challenges. If there's something hard or difficult to do, it's something that gets me excited"), how the Blinx sequel will differentiate itself from other Xbox games ("In Blinx 2, that's what I'm trying to do, to get the full range [from kids to adults], whereas when I look at Conker I think it's targeted at an adult -- a more hardcore audience"), and licensed games ("I look at that as almost a new genre of games -- these licensed games or movie games or whatever. When I see that they're selling well or that they are hits, it's really hard to evaluate whether or not it means it's a good game.")

JJC writes "If, like me, your favourite thing about Doom 3 is the test_boxstack demo map, you're in for a treat. To demonstrate their physics engine, NovodeX has produced a Windows program, called NovodeX Rocket, that lets you set up and manipulate a number of 3D objects and watch them collide and interact realistically. Included are ragdolls (human, deer, horse and monsters), dominoes, trebuchets and a giant Jenga tower. This coincides with the NovodeX Physics SDK v 2.1.1 becoming freely available for non-commercial use. I heard about this from David Weller's MSDN Blog."

Thanks to 1UP for its story discussing a new Game Boy Advance peripheral which "turns the GBA into a data logging computer and tuning interface for sports cars". The story explains of TurboXS' DTEC peripheral: "The basic version of the DTEC turns the GBA into a customizable digital gauge for displaying boost pressure, RPM, and different temperature settings. Future upgrades will evidently allow it to show more indicators, like G-forces, knock warnings, and other data."

RobZ65 writes "The new upgrade to Ninja Gaiden, previously mentioned on Slashdot Games, has just debuted for download via Xbox Live. The pack features improved camera, more bosses, improved AI, a new weapon, and two new costumes. What do you fellow Slashdotters think about addressing customer complaints in downloads? GameSpy has hands-on impressions of the Hurricane Pack from a couple of weeks back, and IGN covers the new Intercept Technique for blocking and countering, if want more info."

An anonymous reader writes "According to Firingsquad, NVIDIA will be announcing a new GeForce 6 card for the mainstream market at Quakecon this week. Like GeForce 6800, this new card will support shader model 3.0 and SLI (on PCI Express cards), so you can connect two $199 cards together for double the performance. NVIDIA will also be producing AGP versions of this card as well."

Thanks to Warcry for its coverage of MMO creator Turbine's 'Turbine Nation' fanfest, an event which has included new details on the 2005-due Dungeons & Dragons Online, confirming "dungeon randomization as well as instancing in... the game (when you enter a dungeon, a completely separate version of that dungeon is created for you and your party)." GameSpy also has multiple new articles on D&D Online, including a new preview mentioning "D&D Online will be extremely combat-heavy. A whole lot of thought was put into its real-time combat system." Finally, Warcry has details on the Asheron's Call expansion, being developed following Turbine's buyback of the franchise, which apparently includes a "level cap... raise from 126 to 275."

jasoncart writes "Sony has confirmed more details on PlayStation & PlayStation 2 killer-app Gran Turismo's upcoming port to the PSP handheld, further underlining the simplicity of PS2 to PSP conversions - series producer Kazunori Yamauchi says: 'Since we're already developing the [Gran Turismo 4]'s system on the PS2 hardware, we're planning to port that directly to the PSP.' IGN PSP has more details from the same interview, and there are also some Japanese shaky-cam videos featuring game footage playing on the PSP, one of the first times the handheld has been seen running in standalone form."